Me siento bien en otoño

summer

nuevo foto

Someone asked for a new photo.

A nice day for a mate

You can take a gringo out of Argentina, but can you ever really take Argentina out of a gringo?

more chile photos

Dan: Here's another set of pics taken on my way from the south of Chile to Santiago.


Volcan Osorno and Lago Llanquihue from the town of Llanquihue.














Saltos de Petrohue. This may be the bluest river I've ever seen. Not pictured are the 300 tourists also taking pictures.













One of my companions at the top of Volcan Villarica.














Castillo Mancera, one of the Spanish forts around the bay near Valdivia. I love photoshop.














From the Cementerio General in Santiago.




















These girls are just plain cute, don't you think? Maybe a little young for the coy pose though. Vale is my friend Sergio's niece and Kika is her cousin, I think.

















Street art in Santiago. This is the best spray paint stencil I saw, and the placement in the corner between buildings was perfect.

















Outside an office building near La Moneda in Santiago.














Jerky salesman and used clothing vendor in Pudahuel, Santiago suburb.














Intimate clothing for sale on the street in Pudahuel. I had a lot of time to take artsy pictures while killing time, waiting for my perpetually late friend.

chile photos

Here are some pictures taken by either Sergio or me, that I think are cool, from the south of Chile.


I'm not sure why, but there is a lighthouse near the center of Coyhaique, Chile, 50 km from the coast.




















The Hospital in Coyhaique.














The cemetery in Coyhaique. People always thought we were weird for touring cemeteries, but they are peaceful, usually shady and make for some nice pics.












Cascada de la Virgen, between Coyhaique and Puerto Aisen.




















We ran into these fellas walking back from an overnight camping trip near Puerto Aisen.














This one is just across the border, in Argentina. When the truck broke down with 10 passengers, we spent the night in Rio Mayo, national capital of sheep-shearing. Too bad we broke down just a week before their festival. http://ohbrotherwhereami.blogspot.com/2008/01/festival-nacional-de-la-esquila.html


Isla Achao, near Chiloe Island.
















Palafitos, or stilts holding up houses in Castro, Chiloe. I got my shoes muddy for this shot.

the stats

(Hopkins, MN, USA)

I can’t help but notice that our readership, as reflected by the statcounter, has declined precipitously now that both Lou and I are back in the states. What? Do you think that perhaps our lives have suddenly become any less adventurous and exciting? Why just the other day I drove to St. Paul and drank wine with Anne, and to a lesser extent Brian, until at least 1 AM. Today I bleached the kitchen sink. Two days ago I shoveled snow! Doesn’t get much more exciting than that. Well, to tell the truth, the past few days, in addition to trying to get used to each other again, getting out and seeing people, have been occupied largely by cleaning, preparing and moving in to our new place. Most of this time I’ve still felt like a backpacker, in the same clothes I’ve been in all year. But now I’m starting to pull wrinkly wardrobe from storage and help establish a home, a place to sleep for more than a few nights at a time. I think it should be nice to have stuff again. If you want to get a hold of us, we should have our old phone number back on Thursday.

I now we’ve had a loyal readership, ands some who only check in from time to time. We’ve appreciated knowing that people were interested. What amazes me are the random googlers who chance upon our site. I realized recently that through the statcounter software, we can see what search terms led people to our site. Here are some terms from the past few weeks that people were searching for when they came across our site:

Paila de mariscos
Bondiola sadwich traslation
Cartagena chile
dan et lou
what is pulmay
hacer tuto
cortisone shot for the lungs
what to do at night in valdivia
aisen fires
lepra protest
locro is pronounced
el calafate to puerto madryn
estai tenei chileno
go see the doctor in spanish
itchy welts photos
pichanga recipe
chilean gringo site

Cool huh? I think its funny that some poor person who may have been suffering from “itchy welts”, looking for advice, somehow ended up on our website. Whoever you are, anti-histamine pills helped me quite a bit. Good luck with that.

Half a world away

Dan: Ok, technically the distance between Coyhaique, Chile and the north side of Minneapolis, USA is really only a quarter of the way around the world.




This is where I stayed for a few weeks in December and January.
















This is a few blocks from my parents' house, where I was staying a few days ago.

Patagonia vid

Being back and having time and resources with which to do so, Lou made a video montage of our trip to Argentina Patagonia in November and December of 2007. Sweet memories.

plane trip

The first thing I did when I got off the plane in Minneapolis was buy a large coffee at McDonalds and marvel at how large a large coffee is in this land. Since then I've been hanging out at my parents' house, catching up with Lou and catching up on sleep.

Here are some pictures from on the way home.


The desert near Arica, Chile, known as just about the dryest place on Earth.














Somewhere above Colombia, I think.

















I got to reunite with my old buddy Pablo while killing time in Miami International. He used to study in one of my classes in Minnesota. It was great to catch up and speak puro Spanglish. In this picture you can probably tell that we had both been up later than our normal bedtimes.










Black Dog steam plant on the Minnesota River.

So much closer to home

(Bogota, Colombia)
Greetings from Shakiralandia! I don’t even think I’m halfway through the trip home, but I am bored and spending way too much money to use the internet at the airport. It turned out I only had four hours to kill here, but still I had to get out and see (taste) Colombia. Unfortunately the only near option was a cab ride to a shopping mall. So I went for it. I found the food court of my dreams. It looked like any old food court at a mall I suppose, but every place had food preparations I had never seen before. I think only one place even sold hot dogs. If I were in Chile, that is just about all you would find. A lot of meat, but also beans, rice, arepas. I got something I have been excited about ever since I heard of it two days ago. Ajiaco is a chicken potato soup that comes with a side of sour cream and a side of capers to throw in, as well as rice and half an avocado. It was a tasty trip to the mall. I know I just ate on the plane and I will have to eat on the next one too, but I was just so excited. I almost bought some street fare as well. There was a big ball of fried yucca, called a besito I think, that was very tempting. But I resisted. I did indulge in a an espresso though. I am in Juan Valdez country. Ohh I had forgotten how much I love coffee. I have been suffering with Chilean instant Nescafe, or avoiding it altogether, preferring tea or mate. But this was really good. Cab ride back to airport, some money exchanging (its so weird by the way, to switch currency for a few hours, never quite getting the grasp of it)and a VERY thorough security check. Flight is supposed to leave in 20 minuites so i suppose i should go. Despite the rain, I think Bogota is a place to come back to some day.

Entry # 148

Sergio and I had a huge parillada (pictured at right) and a bottle of wine as a farewell dinner out in Pudahuel. I'm ready to go, but i have to pack up some stuff and try to sleep. I'm still hoping to sell my phone to someone in the hostel too. After a couple of weeks bite free, the bugs of Chile have returned to send me off with some itches for the plane ride. Wow, I'm going to be in Colombia in 12 hours! Maybe I'll get to meet some Venezuelans too. But first thing first, getting a few hours of sleep (going to need full ear plugs and sleeping pills tonight - there is a party in the patio below my window) getting up at 5 and walking to the bus.

I seriously look forward to getting back, and getting tomorrow over with. On the bright side, I'm going to try and meet with my long-lost friend Pablo in Miami tomorrow night. Geez I am such an international jet-setter!

I'll probably write some more or at least put up some pics in a few days.

148 blog entries eh? Not bad I gotta say. Thanks for being our loyal readers. It has been a nice way to keep in touch. But we all know who the real hero is here: the internet. I love you internet. You're the best. xxx ooo

Go back

I was just out walking and shopping. There is a back-to-school frenzy happening. My hostel is in a university neighborhood and every school is out trying to promote enrollment, handing out flyers that everyone immediately throws away.

The other night I stayed over at the house of one of Sergio's buddies. I didn't expect that would happen when we met at a pub downtown that evening, but I'm learning to go with the flow more often. Rigid gringo-ness doesn't have much application on Friday night. Besides, I had no idea where I was and they got seriously offended when I said I wanted to catch a bus back home, which turned out would've been difficult at night anyway.

Yesterday I rested and watched TV, ate Chinese food. I got a bit homesick watching a movie I had never heard of called Juno. I'm curious to find out just how "out-of-it" I am in turns of popular culture. I already run into travelers who make cultural references that I just don't get, having been pretty much out of it for year. Louann has mentioned the disconnect, not just in pop culture, but in culture at large, that I can expect upon returning but won't understand until I experience it.

I leave pretty early Wednesday, 6 hour layover in Bogota, then spend 10 hours in Miami. Should be about 27 hours in all. Don't expect to see me out partying for a little while after that.

the final countdown

I'm in my last few days in South America. I don't really have much to do these days and have little ambition to go very far. This morning I was going to catch a bus to the beach about two hours away, but when I got up I realized that getting more sleep would be a better investment of my time, and may help with my neverending cold. So today I'm doing some laundry, taking care of some business.

Sometimes when I'm bored at the hostel I start clicking on old blog entries, remembering our good times and bad times, our fun trips, my bad facial hair. It's a good thing we did this blog or there might have been things forgotten, like when I used to keep a journal when I traveled solo. Although I think I'm just about ready to get back home, I can't help but feel reminiscent for the year already. So even though supposedly we kept up the blog for our readers, it'll be nice to look back on from time to time.

I've been sleeping in the same bunk for over a week now and it is a very nice change to be able to stay in one place for awhile and not have to carry around the big backpack. I was at the point where I was really excited to unload weight any time I could. I gave away some shoes that I hadn't worn in a month. I starting bathing more regularly because every time I use shampoo, the backpack gets lighter, right?

Yesterday Sergio and I had a nice day of tourism. We went to the main cemetery (the largest graveyard I've ever seen), had a gigantic lunch of Peruvian food at a market, and finally got to the Museo de Bellas Artes.

When one goes into a market that is filled with small restaurants and lunch counters, one is accosted by the proprietress of each business, imploring that you come to eat her homemade food. The menu at each place is pretty much the same and roughly the same price, so you have to choose based on other factors; availability of seats, popularity with locals, clean appearance, prices posted on the walls, personality of the person yanking on your shirt sleeve. Pictured in front of Sergio from top to bottom are Chilean ceviche, papas haucainas (potatoes with a spicy cream sauce) , Inka Cola and my amazing saltado or stir-fry, plus bread and hot sauce. We could barely roll out of that market we were so stuffed.

Cerro Santa Lucia

The camera seems to work about 50% of the time, which is great since I thought it was completely dead. There are two big hills in town. Yesterday I climbed Cerro Santa Lucia again, but it was much nicer than when Lou and I did it at midday two months ago when it was a thousand degrees out (538 Celcius). The park itself, a hill in the middle of the city, is a haven away from the traffic and noise. A nice place to chill out and read, or make out with your partner on a bench. I found a copy of Slaughterhouse Five in Spanish to keep me company.

Futbol fields of Argentina and Chile

(Santiago, Chile)

















A dirt soccer field in Cartagena, Chile. I was staying in one of those houses on the hill on the left.

So here are some of my scenic soccer fields. Maybe I was just missing being one of the worst players on the worst soccer team, in the lowest bracket of a recreational league in a country not known for soccer, but for awhile whenever we went somewhere, I was obsessed with taking pictures of soccer fields in exotic locations. They will put a field in any old place that is flat, which is sometimes hard to come by in the Andes. But this may be one reason why Argentines have world class soccer teams. Chile, on the other hand, has soccer fields everywhere too, but their team... They are still waiting to beat Argentina some day. Unfortunately, I was rarely able to catch people playing on the fields when I had the camera handy.



You can see one of the goals in the grass with Volcan Puntiagudo in the background. Its hard to take a good picture from a moving bus. The volcano is in Chile, but I'm pretty sure I was in Argentina when I took the picture.










Ischigualasto park (Valley of the moon) in Argentina.














Looks like one of the junior soccer teams practicing at Andes Talleres Athletic Club in Godoy Cruz (Mendoza), Argentina. I'm told that this club is better known for its basketball team.












Improvised soccer field in a courtyard at the public works building in Mendoza.















Parque San Martin in Mendoza contains a few fields and stadiums. This is the largest of them, Estadio Islas Malvinas, where I went to a few games.













Valle Fertil, Argentina. If this town is named Fertile Valley, you can imagine what the surrounding area looks like.
















La Costanera in Puerto Madryn, Argentina.
















La Bonbonera, home stadium of Boca Juniors in Buenos Aires.















Smaller version of the above, also in La Boca, Buenos Aires.















Lago Petrohue, Chile. That might actually be Volcan Puntiagudo seen from the other side.















Near Las Vegas, Argentina.
















El Bolson, Argentina